St. John’s wort in its raw form
July 2004 | Living Healthy: The Supplement Shelf
St. John’s Wort
by Tod Cooperman, M.D.
The most sought-after depression medication in Germany is not Prozac or even Zoloft. The top-seller to treat mild depression is a prescription-only concentrated extract of flowers and leaves of St. John’s wort. It outnumbers Prozac scripts more than six-to-one.
Here in the U.S., St. John’s wort doesn’t carry such status compared to the Prozacs and Zolofts. But it remains popular as an over-the-counter herbal remedy. Don’t mistake its easy availability for less potency. The medicinal herb should be used with caution to avoid potential drug interactions.
ConsumerLab.com recently tested 16 St. John’s wort products for dosage content. Ten supplements passed the review while six did not. Among the products that failed to pass, one provided less than one-quarter of the generally recommended dose of St. John’s wort. Three other products contained the heavy metal cadmium at a level considered unacceptable by the World Health Organization. Two products were dropped from testing because they did not identify the part of the herb used, as required by the FDA.
One product that failed the review was an herb powder from Amazon Nutraceuticals that suggested 1 to 2 capsules daily, while a more appropriate dose would be 7 to 13 capsules. It’s hard to feel more even-keeled with that sort of uneven performance.
If not properly made, St. John’s wort, like other herbs, may be contaminated or lack the right plant chemicals. While you can’t always tell what’s in the bottle, be sure that it claims to be made from flowers or leaves and know whether it is an extract or dried herb. Extracts are two-to-five times more concentrated than the herb, so the dose needs to be much higher for herb than extract.
Tod Cooperman, M.D. is president of ConsumerLab.com, an independent supplement testing company. For detailed reports on supplements visit www.consumerlab.com.
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